Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman used his weekly media session on Wednesday to deny he’d written an article criticizing a radical activist within “Black Lives Matter,” but said he agreed with some of the points critiquing the movement.

Last week, an unauthorized photo of Sherman and Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch was posted by BLM activist “King Noble” with a caption that advocated violence against white people. King Noble also praised the August shooting death of Houston-area sheriff’s deputy Darren Goforth.

Someone identifying himself as Sherman then responded by calling out King Noble for glorifying the violence. The 27-year-old Sherman said Wednesday he didn’t write the response, but sympathized with some of its points.

“I don’t think any time’s a time to call for an all-out war on the police or any race of people. I thought that was an ignorant statement,” Sherman said. “As a black man I do understand that black lives matter. I stand for that. I believe in that wholeheartedly. But I also think that there’s a way to go about things and there’s a way to do things, and I think that issue at hand needs to be addressed internally before we move on.”

Sherman, never shy about sharing his opinions, said the problem of violence against African Americans was more complex than the well-publicized recent episodes of alleged racism by police officers. The Compton, California, native didn’t deny that institutional racism — including among police — played a part in that violence, but said that personal experience taught him there are no simple explanations for a complex issue.

“From personal experience living in the ‘hood, living in the inner city, you deal with things — you deal with people dying,” Sherman said. “I dealt with a best friend getting killed, and it was two 35-year-old black men. There was no police officer involved, there wasn’t anybody else involved, and I didn’t hear anybody shouting ‘black lives matter’ then.

“And I think that’s the point we have to get to,” he continued. “We need to deal with our own internal issues before we move forward and start pointing fingers and start attacking other people — to solidify ourselves as a people and to deal with our issues. I think as long as we have black-on-black crime and one black man killing another, if black lives matter, then they should matter all the time.”

Seahawks wide receiver Doug Baldwin, a teammate of Sherman’s in both Seattle and in college at Stanford, expressed his appreciation for Sherman’s stance on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/DougBaldwinJr/status/644235208166735872

According to Baldwin, Sherman’s remarks on Wednesday were a direct result of conversations the two players have being having for years after each experienced violence at a young age.

“We talk about what we know. For him, this is something that we’ve talked about numerous times. We talked about it when we were in college,” Baldwin said after the press conference. “My cousin got shot and killed when I was in college, and it was pretty significant to me. We were talking about how nobody really talks about those things — the black-on-black crime — when we’re trying to promote that black lives matter.”

Three-time first-team All-Pro Sherman said he felt obligated to use his platform to argue against racism, and that he wasn’t afraid that commenting on hot-button topics might hurt his ability to continue with his myriad off-field endorsements.

“I’ve passed the point where alienation and controversy and dealing with opinions matter, because I believe in what I say and I’m not being vulgar, I’m not being disrespectful, I’m not saying anything that’s in my opinion controversial,” he said. “I think it’s something that I believe in. I think a person saying that we should celebrate our humanity, and that all lives matter, if that turns off an advertiser or turns off a company, then more power to you.”

“You deal with a lot of things when you put yourself out there in that way,” he continued. “Whether it’s on the field or off the field, you have to deal with the good and bad that comes with the spotlight. And I think that some people don’t want to have to deal with that.”

“To me, that’s what I’m proud of, that he’s not afraid to be criticized, not afraid to be judged,” Baldwin said. “Because a lot of times that’s what holds people in his position back. I’m just proud of him because he was willing to put himself out there to do it.”

Sherman said he wished there were more high-profile athletes speaking on matters of race and other societal issues.

“I think if we did have more guys that spoke up on those kind of things, I think we’d be in a better place as a society and as a culture,” he said.